International Relations. A self-Study Guide to Theory

Self-study (2)
Please read Capra 2010: Chapter 1 (The way of physics) and (for German 
readers) Brodbeck 2011: Chapters 2 (Social Physics) and 5 (Rationality) 
from the required reading list.
In addition, choose one or two of the recommended titles from the section 
on “Philosophy/science, physics – Classical world view” from the sup-
plementary reading list. 
Then please take some time and reflect on: 
1) the general argument that our (European) view of the world is funda-
mentally shaped by the Cartesian-Newtonian idea of science (the role of 
science in and for society/politics/economics/culture/arts/literature etc.), 
and
2) the argument that the natural sciences (with physics and mathematics at 
the core) are key to our scientific world view (science as physics?).
You are invited to exchange your views in our course on iversity in the 
working group “Physics and politics”. For the iversity contact details and 
enrollment requirements, please see the information in the preface. 
2.4. Cartesian-Newtonian science in transition? “New physics” and 
the rise of a new scientific world view? 
In recent years, a huge debate has been taking place on whether or not a pro-
cess of replacing the Cartesian-Newtonian world view with a new world view 
based on “new physics” (for example, Dürr 2012: 16; Capra 2012: 51) has 
been set in motion. “new physics” is a term that refers to physics since the 

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89 
beginning of the 20
th
century, with the focus on the works of Einstein and the 
atomic and quantum physicists. The development of new physics began with 
early 20
th
century physics experiments which led to the discovery of phe-
nomena that could not be described in the language of classical physics and 
predicted by its (classical) mathematical laws (Capra 2012: 66). These find-
ings resulted in the development of new models and theories that tried to de-
scribe and predict those phenomena more accurately. Physicists accepted that 
new physics had transformed and replaced many of the central laws of classi-
cal Newtonian physics. Consequently, it shook the Cartesian-Newtonian sci-
entific world view to its very foundations. In fact, Einstein’s theories of rela-
tivity, the discovery through atomic physics of the structures of the sub-
atomic world and the findings of quantum theory completely destroyed the 
fundamentals of the classical mechanical Cartesian-Newtonian world view. 
The idea of space and time as absolute, the idea of elementary particles as the 
fundamental components of matter, the idea of a causal, deterministic nature 
of physical phenomena and the idea of an objective description of nature 
were no longer valid (Capra 2012: 59). 
However, while the laws of new physics have been proven experimentally 
since the 1920s and have since been driving technological developments for 
decades, only since the turn of the millennium have the implications of new 
physics for our understanding of the world and of science more generally 
been discussed in a broader spectrum of sciences as well as in the public dis-
course on science (see, for example, the contributions in the volume of 
Hüther/Spannbauer 2012. There are additional titles in the supplementary 
reading list). More than 80 years have gone by since physicists proved the 
laws of atomic and quantum physics and since Einstein revolutionized the 
discipline. However, from what you know about the time spans of such tran-
sition processes, this should not come as a surprise to you. 
What has happened? Are we witnessing another historical transition pro-
cess towards a “new scientific world view”? Assuming the argument about 
the principles and laws of natural sciences (with physics and mathematics at 
the core) strongly determining our scientific world view holds true: what will 
the implications be in the case that our world view of physics is changing? 
Will this change be relevant for the study of IR and for the way IR theories 
are constructed? Will it matter for the assumptions on which theory building 
is based and for the explanatory models and methodological principles used 
to study international relations? Or does physics and mathematics have no 
relevance for the study of IR at all? 
In order to explore these questions, let us take a closer look at “new phys-
ics” in the next steps. 

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90 
2.4.1. Einstein and atomic physics 
The dual nature of light 
While Newton believed that light is made of corpuscles – which was the ac-
cepted perspective on the nature of light for 200 years – Einstein’s revolu-
tionary work on light (1905) demonstrated a dual nature of light as both a